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Friday, November 30, 2012

I will launch my all-new YouTube channel devoted to all things film and television in early December.

Discover all your favorite full-length theatrical film selections from the Golden Age of Cinema and watch them anytime, anywhere on multiple screens and platforms, including desktop and laptop computers, HD
TV receivers, smartphones and tablets.

Friday, November 16, 2012

I was listening to old-time radio programming on Sirius XM Radio because of the talent that was the star of their shows. So did Behind the Mike, NBC's half-hour live program hosted by veteran radio sportscaster Graham McNamee.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

The Thin Blu Line depicts the lives of Spellman, a police investigator who is befriended by a digital toy from the 1980s called Speak and Spell. Aided by Capt. Del Vecchio, the talking electronic toy tracks down the most distracting crooks in an offbeat time.

Friday, November 2, 2012

The theme from the latest Walt Disney Animation Studios animated feature film, Wreck-It Ralph, depicts a fictional video game fan created by lyricist Jerry Buckner trapped in a world where interactive entertainment and digital media com alive.

Buckner tells CINEMATICOLOGY how the Mouse House got the inspiration for a fictitious CGI-animated character from a 1980s Columbia Records album entitled Pac-Man Fever. The title composition for this film is a retro-style novelty song called Wreck It, Wreck-It Ralph.

Thanks to the folks at Walt Disney Animation Studios for posting behind-the-scenes footage of reuniting for the music video cover of this timeless jukebox cult favorite.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Dead End Kids' vintage cinematic treasure, Crime School, is the most memorable film in the franchise. In this classic installment of this critically acclaimed motion picture series, the Dead End Kids enroll in a special secret society devoted to the detection of crime.

Watch it along with other titles in the Dead End Kids franchise at YouTube Movies.

The hilarious Broadway farce that inspired the classic Warner Bros. film, Mister Roberts was based on Thomas Heggen's classic maritime novel of the same title. Henry Fonda's title character is as compelling and zany as any other fictitious military hero on the big screen during the 1960s. Warner Bros also cashed in on the popularity of the maritime comedy in theaters in the same decade with The Incredible Mr. Limpet, a film adaptation of the novel by Theodore Pratt, combining live-action segments with hand-painted animation.

Monday, October 8, 2012

According to Deadline, Warner Bros. has omitted the film rights to Stephen King's 3-novel trilogy, The Dark Tower, and, since Ron Howard has been tapped by W.B. bosses at the studio's headquarters in Burbank to direct the first of 3 films in the franchise, Howard's company, Imagine, decided to scrap the film series. In the meantime, he's currently filming Race for Universal Pictures and Exclusive Media Group.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Ben Stiller is in the director's chair again, as Twentieth Century Fox's new re-imagining of James Thurber's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty revives the famous Danny Kaye character who daydreams primarily and bamboozles into some outrageous heroes of the past.

Like the Kaye character, Stiller's Walter Mitty is as cunning as every man for himself, especially when he plays multiple roles in countless situations. Unlike Kaye, Mitty is portrayed by Stiller, whose previous big-screen directorial successes have included Reality Bites and Zoolander - he is the son of Jerry Stiller, who
was best known as Kevin James' sidekick on The King of Queens.

Monday, September 17, 2012

If you're planning a Thanksgiving dinner this November, than look no further than just an easy-to-prepare meal. This Pete Smith Specialty will show you how to cook turkey with homemade stuffing - it tastes as good as any poultry bird can look!

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

The environmentally friendly animated television series Defenders of the Earth (DOE) followed the adventures of four King Features comic-strip characters intent on fighting ecological threats on the planet.

Friday, August 31, 2012

Before Touchstone Pictures resurrected the 1974 cult classic Gone in 60 Seconds in the early 2000s, I have uploaded the entire full feature-length theatrical film version on this blog and at YouTube Movies. A
team of good natured automobile thieves is about to drive away and go full throttle, as this rapid-fire car chase captivated movie goers during much of the 1970s, three years before New World Pictures released Ron Howard's feature directorial debut Grand Theft Auto in the same decade.

No one knew the Muppets like me. These foam-rubber puppets starred in The Muppet Show, which was syndicated by I.T.C. Entertainment (now I.T.V. Studios) across the planet and featured a variety of guests
performing many of the most hilarious sketches ever.

If you had seen an unidentified flying object, or U.F.O., invading planet Earth in the 1960s, you might be abducted by an extraterrestrial creature - and depart for life on another planet far, far away. In 1978, the NBC Television Network debut a controversial science-fiction drama from the late actor-producer and director Jack Webb (Dragnet, Pet Kelly's Blues, Emergency!, ADAM-12, Jeff Regan, Detective, O'Hara,
U.S. Treasury) called Project U.F.O., starring Caskey Swain as Lt. Harry Fitz. According to the Retroist Retro Blog and Podcast, the show is produced by Mark VII Limited in association with Worldvision Enterprises, which is now CBS Television Distribution.

Disney's 1975 imagining of the classic 1971 Western novel by Jack M. Bickham, best known for the Brad Smith series of tennis mystery thrillers, depicts the exploits of a family led by Russell Donovan fending off their outrageous foes portrayed by Don Knotts and Tim Conway, best known for TV's The Carol Burnett Show, as they seek offbeat romps through a nineteenth-century ghost town. Like all other Bickham novels,
The Apple Dumpling Gang stars Bill Bixby, Susan Clark, Conway and Knotts and is aimed at a family-friendly movie-going audience who believe in the power of the theatrical feature-film Western cult favorite.
The Apple Dumpling Gang was composed by the Sherman brothers and performed by the Jordanaires.

Another of Bickham's most beloved novels, Baker's Hawk, evolved into a 1977 film of the same title.

Friday, August 24, 2012

American Grafitti depicts the trials and tribulations of teenagers sharing their love for driving convertible motor vehicles in the early 1960s. Richard Dreyfus, Candy Clark and a pre-DaVinci Code Ron Howard starred.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Nominated for seven Academy Awards, this breakthrough Embassy Pictures film features the music of two of the world's favorite musical superstars, GRAMMY recipients Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. It stars Dustin Hoffman, whose distinguished career as a big-screen character actor is established with roles in critically acclaimed films such as Straight Time, Hook, and Stray Dogs, among others. Developed by Embassy founder and Massachusetts native Joseph E. Levine (The Day of the Dolphin, Mad Monster Party, The Carpetbaggers), The Graduate proved to be a proven box-office hit for Embassy until Vivendi-owned Studio Canal snapped up the rights to the Embassy library in the late 1980s.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

If you had seen an unidentified flying object, or U.F.O., invading planet Earth, then you might be abducted by an extraterrestrial creature from another planet. So NBC debuted their new fact-based science-fiction drama series from the late actor-producer-director Jack Webb's Mark VII Limited called Project U.F.O., which focused on the cases of Sgt.. Harry Fitz (Caskey Swaim) based on Project Blue Book. According to The Retroist Podcast, the show is produced in association with Worldvision Enterprises, which is now CBS Television Distribution, and broadcast on NBC from 1978 to 1979.

Swaim and William Jordan starred as two United States Air Force debunkers who investigated and tracked down extraterrestrial evidence concerning U.F.O.'s and the aliens who invaded Earth during the 1950s and 1960s as a part of Project Blue Book. What the USAF did not explain how the earthlings arrived on that planet, S/Sgt.Fitz interrogated the extraterrestrial happenings by debunking those deep-space beings and unraveling the conspiracy.

According to Webb, Project U.F.O. was one of his most successful series in the ongoing history of Mark VII Ltd. alongside Emergency!, Sierra, ADAM-12, Dragnet and Mobile 1 - all Universal Television/Comcast shows airing on free television during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

Project U.F.O. probed life on other planets as it went the way of U.F.O.'s invading Earth. But what if Jordan and Swaim conspired their colleagues in the U.S. Air Force as Project Blue Book had searched for more unidentified flying saucers and other objects in the galaxies that may appear when a human being were to be snatched? And, if those U.F.O.'s were to visit planet Earth, should the Project Blue Book team hunt down those flying vehicles in the USAF hangars?

Jordan was succeeded in the second and final season of Project U.F.O. by a pre-9 to 5 Edward Winter.

As Project U.F.O. went, so went Mark VII Ltd.

During the mid- to late 1970s, Mark VII Ltd. produced Mobile 1 for ABC.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

The conclusion of Summit Entertainment's The Twilight Saga franchise based on a series of bestselling novels by Stephanie Meyer, Breaking Dawn Part 2 is the second installment of the film inspired by the fourth book in the Hachette Book Group-published collection.

MAD satirizes The Twilight Saga and Disney's High School Musical in one of the segments of Cartoon Network's original animated series version of the iconic magazine of popular-culture parodies.

I remembered the earlier years of television as evidenced by Matty Mattel, the King of Toys when Mattel sponsored Matty's Funday Funnies, featuring classic animated characters acquired by DreamWorks Animation - the team the brought film goers Shrek - and broadcast by ABC in the 1960s. For a toy company with a reputable presence in the retail market, Mattel's byline "You can tell it's Mattel... it's swell"
was succeeded by "Creating the Future of Play," and I realized Mattel's sponsorship of the show and its host, the company's product-endorsing mascot Matty Mattel, were a familiar presence during the early days of the Golden Age of Television and, since then, continue to this day.

Prime time animation was a latter part of the 1960s, with fewer exceptions such as Top Cat.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Americathon satirizes the everyday 24-hour annual event and reveals the events that raise more dollars for their favorite charities. Bet you don't know all about the Americathon cast. Or do I knock Lorimar execs in the boxing ring?

A pre-Tonight Show Jay Leno throws hit thinking cap in the boxing ring.

Remember the Japanese ringmaster hitting the gong?

The opening theme song It's A Beautiful Day, performed by The Beach Boys.